Download - Pinacothèque de Paris

outlines that embody he whimsical, child-like style of Paul Klee. A year later, his
portrait types are replaced by fairy-tale inspired subjects, which he surrounds
with an array of surrealist flora and fauna. In August of 1949, Lichtenstein is
included in a group show at the Chinese Gallery in New York; the gallery
typically shows the work of the American Abstract artists as well as Chinese
classical pieces.
Birds and insects are prominently featured in Lichtenstein’s surreal-inspired
paintings by 1950. Knights and maidens, castles, dragons and medieval saints
replace those subjects, rendered in muted pinks, blues and mauves around
1951. Carved wood totems and playful assemblages depicting kings, horses
and warriors made from metal and found objects such as screws and drill
buffers are shown with his paintings in April of 1951 at the Carlebach Gallery,
Lichtenstein’s first solo show in New York City. In June, his contract is terminated
at OSU, and he and his family move to Cleveland where Isabel’s work as a
contemporary interior decorator can expand and Lichtenstein begins a series of
ad hoc commercial engineering and drafting jobs.
At the beginning of 1952, Lichtenstein joins the stable of artists at the John Heller
Gallery in New York and shows mischievous, flatly patterned renditions of
prominent nineteenth-century American genre paintings. Cowboys and Native
American motifs are another prominent subject of Lichtenstein’s during his
pre-Pop period. Like much of Lichtenstein’s production they are featured in a
variety of mixed media-oils, pastels, watercolors, ink, pencil and in woodcut or
linoleum prints. He invents a rotating easel so he can paint upside-down and
sideways. He wins several awards for works he submits to regional and
national juried print and sculpture competitions. His works are exhibited at
Heller and in Cleveland at the Art Colony Gallery. In 1954, his first son, David,
is born in Cleveland. Around 1955, he returns to the idea of assemblage with
abstract wall constructions of painted plywood, string and canvas. In 1956 his
second son, Mitchell, is born.
In the fall of 1957, Lichtenstein accepts an assistant professorship at the State
University of New York in Oswego, in northern New York State. His work
becomes more abstract and expressionistic. By 1958, images of Mickey Mouse,
Donald Duck and Bugs Bunny can be deciphered as hidden imagery in some of
the work. Others may have been used as drop cloths and destroyed. His brightly
colored heavily impastoed abstract paintings are shown at the Condon Riley
Gallery in New York in June of 1959.
By 1960, Lichtenstein resigns from his Oswego teaching post to become
14